KUALA LUMPUR – Lawmakers across the political divide were united in their worries over a bill to amend the Universities and University Colleges Act (Auku) 1971, which was tabled in the Dewan Rakyat today.
Aimed at granting students greater autonomy in managing their associations’ activities and finances, the proposed amendments involving Sections 15 and 16 of the act were debated in Parliament today by 23 MPs from both sides.
While PKR’s R. Yuneswaran (Segamat-PH) and PAS’ Ahmad Fadhli Shaari (Pasir Mas-PN) might rarely see eye-to-eye on certain issues, the maintaining of Subsection 48A of the First Schedule was a point of contention for both MPs.
The law stipulates that a university board has the power to reduce or extend the term of a students’ union and its members.
Yuneswaran urged the Higher Education Ministry to consider amending the provision, stressing that the minister should step forth as a figure that defends the fate of students instead of giving full authority to university boards to decide students’ futures.
“Students in our local universities have their dignity and credibility, they are leaders who should be respected by their university board,” he said during his debate on the bill in the lower House today.
“The board should not be given the authority to act as a campus dictator, which we’ve heard is already happening, in deciding how long students can serve in the student representative council.”
He added that the term of the student representatives should be determined through campus elections, stressing that the government must ensure that the autonomy provided to university boards would not be abused as a political weapon.
“Certain individuals (in the university board) might hinder (efforts by) a student representative who has a different understanding, ideology or plan of action from the university board.”
Expressing similar sentiments, Fadhli echoed calls for the term of student representative council members to be voted on during campus elections.
“It would be less democratic if power was given to university authorities to decide whether to shorten or extend the serving term of student representative council members,” he said during his debate.
He also said since it was an “undeniable” fact that some university board members were political appointees with their own political inclinations, it would be best for power to be returned to the students through whatever mechanism deemed the most suitable.
Meanwhile, Bernama reported that Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Zambry Abdul Kadir said it was more realistic to amend Auku instead of abolishing it, as previously proposed.
He added that a special committee established in 2019 to study the abolition of Auku and the introduction of a new act found that abolition would require the drafting of a new university constitution for all public universities.
This would be a time-consuming process and could disrupt the operations of higher education institutes, the minister said during his winding-up speech on the bill.
The bill involves amendments to six provisions in the act to improve governance, covering management of activities to student discipline.
It includes Section 16B to transfer the power of disciplinary authority from the vice-chancellor to the student disciplinary board for handling disciplinary cases in universities.
It also involves Section 15A to allow the student representative councils and student bodies to collect money and receive donations in whatever way, subject to existing regulations, and Section 48(4) of the First Schedule where the appointment period for student councils is changed from one year to one academic year.
The bill was passed with a majority voice vote. – March 18, 2024